Most companies that capture attribution at all capture only one moment, and inconsistently at that. Sometimes it’s the first channel that ever brought a prospect in, sometimes the last one before they converted. These answer completely different questions, and treating them as the same is why so much attribution data misleads.
Two questions, two answers
First-touch attribution answers one question: which channels discover us? It credits the very first interaction, whether that was a blog post someone found in search, a LinkedIn thread, or a conference. These are your pipeline-building channels. Last-touch attribution answers a different question: which channels convert? It credits the final interaction before the form fill, often a branded search or a direct return visit. These are your closing channels.
The two are frequently different. A prospect might first find you through an organic article (first touch) and convert months later through a paid brand search (last touch). Credit only the last touch and you’ll conclude paid search drives everything, then defund the content that actually started the relationship.
Capture both, on every record
The fix is to create two parallel field sets on the contact. First-touch fields are locked on initial capture and never overwritten. Last-touch fields update on every subsequent submission. Together they show you the full arc, what opens relationships and what closes them, instead of collapsing it into a single misleading number.
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